1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to appliques using high nap fabrics and, in particular, to designs made from appliques of chenille material.
2. Background Information
Chenille material, which has a high nap, carpet-like surface, has long been used for design purposes on garments such as jackets or other fabric bases. As used herein, "chenille" material refers to any high nap fabric in which threads or fibers comprising the nap extend above a flexible woven or non-woven base. The threads or fibers may comprise loops or cut ends to provide a plush, carpet-like surface. Typically, a raised stitch, commonly called a Moss stitch, is used to produce the chenille material
In the past, designs made from chenille material have been time consuming and difficult to produce and affix to the garment or fabric base. Generally, the chenille design was produced by Moss stitching the desired final design directly upon a felt base. Either the felt base was used as the final garment or fabric base, or the felt was thereafter cut out around the stitched design and sewn to the final garment or fabric base. In other instances the chenille design was made by Moss stitching the final design on a felt base which had already been cut to the desired outline. These methods are highly labor intensive and inefficient in production. U.S. Pat. Nos. 359,142, 4,103,634 and 5,005,219 are examples of known methods of producing chenille designs. In the method exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 4,103,634, crest forms have been Cut from a block of pre-made chenille material and then bound to a felt base by stitching. While this has some advantages over other prior art methods, the felt base extends outside of the stitched edges of the chenille crest and provides an additional design element which must be utilized when applying the final product to a garment or other fabric base. Furthermore, while the felt backing has some flexibility, it adds an additional degree of stiffness when finally applied to the garment. This also results in an additional stitching step since the chenille material must be stitched both to the felt backing and later when the crest is sewn onto the garment or fabric base.
Bearing in mind the problems and deficiencies of the prior art, it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an applique which utilizes mass produced chenille material.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an applique made of chenille material which minimizes the labor required to manufacture and affix the applique to a garment or fabric base.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an applique made of chenille material which is soft and flexible and does not impart unnecessary stiffness to the garment or fabric base.